Sunday, 9 December 2012

Weekend Thoughts - and some new activities

I just read a very thought provoking post on Fourth Grade Studio (click here to read) - I left a long comment on it because it really struck home. Definitely go and visit Meg's blog whenever you can. She writes from the heart and I find it very inspirational.
We did a creative writing activity this week - Reindeer on Strike. I decided that we would plan it properly - class discussion, good planning sheets, rough draft, self-edit and then neat copy. It worked well and the children wrote some great stories. When I read Meg's post (above) I realized that I have come a long way as a teacher in the past year. With this writing activity I emphasized the need for capital letters and punctuation (as always) but I didn't obsess about it. This is a major breakthrough because I am an obsessive person. I like things to be done properly and I like to know that I (and my students) have done my/our best. Sometimes this is not a good thing. Sometimes I think it is best to enjoy the moment, messy and inaccurate as it may be! I have to say that my classroom and my house both reflect this "messy" attitude :) For some reason I am only obsessive about the written project. :) (In fact, as I write I can hear my husband puttering around with a broom - I love this man!)
Anyway - I have found that a relaxed attitude to the kids' work - while still holding them accountable to produce their own personal best - actually results in amazing work. I will remember this when it gets to National Curriculum Assessment time :)

And now, some new activities. My class, as a whole, loathe grammar. A collective groan goes up every time the grammar text books appear - and I can't say that I blame them. I always found it incredibly boring as a student as well. In an effort to make it more interesting I have been making grammar games this term and we have been playing with them. It has been great fun! We've played grammar bingo, noun and adjective sort, silly sentence trains, I Have Who Has games - much more interesting than just doing text book exercises. Today I finally finished putting them all together in a pack and have posted it to TpT - yay! Here's a link if you want to check it out. Grammar Games

And here's some pictures of the games in action. (Please ignore the absolutely FILTHY desks - we will be doing our Great Shaving Cream Clean Up next week before the holidays start. I don't know how they get their desks so dirty - it's a true talent that every single one of them has!)